Anonymous denies PSN credit card theft

"If a legitimate and honest investigation into credit card theft is conducted, Anonymous will not be found liable," the group declared in a press release sent to VentureBeat.

"While we are a distributed and decentralised group, our leadership does not condone credit card theft.

"We are concerned with the erosion of privacy and fair use, the spread of corporate feudalism, the abuse of power and the justifications of executives and leaders who believe themselves immune personally and financially for the actions the undertake in the name of corporations and public office."

The statement answers yesterday's finger-pointing by PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai. He told Congress in an open letter that Anonymous' DDOS attacks on PlayStation Network opened the door for the credit card thieves.

Anonymous does not deny attacking PlayStation Network, merely its involvement with the stolen credit card details.

In his letter, Hirai said that PlayStation Network stored, globally, around 12.3 million credit card details. Does that mean only 16 per cent of the 77 million PSN account holders buy content? This excludes people buying PSN content on pre-paid cards.

Hirai went on to say that 5.6 million Americans had their credit card information stored on PSN.

Those numbers, he elaborated, incorporate both active and expired credit cards.

PlayStation Network went down on 20th April in the US. Sony plans to reinstate PSN functionality in a phased roll-out this week. When this will happen in Europe the platform holder won't say.

"We'll announce more details of the phased roll-out, along with specific timings for the UK & Europe, in due course," a spokesperson reiterated to Eurogamer this afternoon.